Tag Archives: Terrorism

Now that the first of the victims have been buriedKhadija Laghari explores what the Christchurch mosque shootings mean for Muslims …

Friday, the 15th of March has been described as “One of New Zealand’s darkest days.” Indeed, Friday is also the holiest of the days during the week as Muslims offer Jumma prayers. The Mosques of Christchurch were full as the residents were looking forward to offer their afternoon prayers until they experienced what they had never imagined in the wildest of their thoughts; it was within a span of seconds that the men’s prayer room was attacked following the women’s prayer room, with a heavily armed shooter, shooting all over the Mosque. The first shooting took place at the Al Noor Mosque following a second shooting at the Linwood Mosque. There were several explosive devices attached to the vehicle of the shooter, who is under custody and has been charged. The city has been placed on a lockdown with all schools and offices shut. A climate change protest, which included young children, was taking place nearby. The Bangladesh Cricket team were extremely lucky to escape with their lives. The chilling attack was live-streamed.

The shooter identified himself as a white man in his late 20s, born in Australia who was motivated to defend ‘our lands’ from ‘invaders’ and wanted to ‘directly reduce immigration rates’. Quebec, Canada also experienced a mass shooting two years ago killing six people at a Mosque. The end of 2017 experienced a rise in hate crimes targeting the Muslims in Quebec City. This could be described as a fear, hatred and hostility toward Islam, perpetuated by negative stereotypes resulting in bias, discrimination, and the marginalization and exclusion of Muslims from social, political and civic life. However, this type of discrimination has been long rooted in the New Zealand immigration policy from the late 1980s. Continue reading →

This is coverage from The News about our recent event about the ongoing tensions between India and Pakistan. The probability of a major armed conflct between Pakistan and India seems to be receding and all chances seem to suggest that due to the intervention of certain foreign quarters, the standoff between the two countries has begun to subside. These views were expressed by former foreign secretary and diplomat Najmuddin Sheikh while addressing a gathering of the city’s intellectual elite and media at the Pakistan Institute of International Affairs (PIIA) on Saturday evening. The theme of the evening was, “The future of the current standoff between India and Pakistan”, the two speakers being Najmuddin Sheikh and Lt-Gen (retd) Tariq Waseem Ghazi, former defence secretary, Pakistan. Sheikh said that Kartarpur was an important element in the equation. He said that no substantial damage had been done and termed the repatriation of an Indian fighter pilot as a highly statesman-like gesture on the part of Prime Minister Imran Khan.

He said that one Adil Ahmed Dar was arrested on September 10, 2017. Was he the same Adil Ahmed Dar that had been pinpointed by the US State Department dispatch? There has been no proof forthcoming from the Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM). Who is this Dar? He has been reported to be on the move constantly. Is he related to the Dar the US has pointed out? All the people pointed out are from India-held Kashmir and not from Pakistan as the Indian media would have the world believe, but they had no links with the (JeM). Thus, he said, the JeM had offered India and the world a propaganda victory. “Objective reality is much more important than perception,” Sheikh said. Continue reading →

It is hard to attach the word ‘great’ with Britain because the citizenship of Reema Iqbal, Zara Iqbal and Shamima Begum has been revoked for national security reasons. But it is equally arguable that the UK has two classes for citizenship: one kind for the whites and another for children of immigrants. The two sisters left UK in 2013 and Shamima left in 2015 with her friends Amira Abase and Kadiza Sultana and all of them married Islamic State (ISIS) jihadists. The most likely reason of the cancellation of their nationality is their Asian descent which is common in all the surviving three women. Had they been of white British origin the Home Secretary Sajid Javid would have taken a different line but he did not hesitate to make these misguided/confused women stateless. Significantly, these Asian British women were not directly involved in crimes against Britain’s national security. Overall, these were not even isolated cases of people travelling to join ISIS or becoming jihadi brides.

According to the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure, UK’s national security is hampered by cyber crimes, espionage for other states, terrorism, organized crimes and spreading weapons of mass destruction. And of course as many as 350 jihadis have already returned to the UK after fighting in Syria. Are Reema, Zara and Shamima bigger threats than them? Shamima Begum was a minor when she left for Syria, therefore should she be held accountable for her actions? Albeit, we also heard Shamima justifying the Manchester bombing but that was a naïve statement by her. Those angry people who are supporting the UK government’s deprivation of her citizenship must know that Sajid Javid did not order the cancellation of the citizenship of white British jihadis supporting the terrorism and suicide bombing in the UK. Continue reading →

We have to give up our India-centric policies and our slave mentality.

Pakistan is on a knife-edge with the upcoming general election on 25 July 2018. With Nawaz Sharif firmly behind bars, civil society organisations are predicting rigging in the election by the armed forces and there is a consensus in the country that the army is mass manipulating electoral politics in favour of its cronies. The economic problem arising out of the present political situation is that Pakistan is seriously in the doldrums owing to its debt to its international creditors. The country is facing a sovereign debt crisis and reliance on Chinese money is very high indeed. As reported recently in the Financial Times, Islamabad is headed for a foreign currency crisis but is keen to avoid yet another IMF bailout. So it is appealing to Beijing for more lending. In the year ending June 2018 Pakistan borrowed $4 billion from China and is facing problems with the devaluation of the rupee, the strategy used by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to keep the economy afloat. At the start of June 2018, the SBP only had $10 billion in foreign currency reserves in comparison to $16.1 billion just a year earlier.

The problem does not stop there because $12.7 billion in external payments are due in comparison to £7.7 billion last year. The country will need to raise $28 billion this financial year to repay its debt obligations. Therefore, in such an environment, it is hardly surprising that Kaiser Bengali thinks that “we have to play our cards right in case of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). The opening up of China has enhanced travel but not trade.” He recently made these remarks while addressing members of the prestigious Pakistan Institute of International Affairs (PIIA) and the media. Speaking on the subject, ‘Changing geo-politics and challenges for Pakistan’, he said: “My fear is that we will not be playing our cards right because of the slave mentality that our bureaucrats and planners have.” Elucidating further he said: “We are always looking to a bigger power to protect us against military adventurism.” In this context, he recalled that back in the 1950, we joined the US-sponsored defence pacts, the Cento and Seato, as a guarantee to be protected during times of aggression. Continue reading →

We have no problem with Iran. Besides, we share a long border and are culturally more akin to Iran than to Saudi Arabia.

The standoff in Yemen between the Saudis and Iranians shows that a high death toll and human suffering alone will stop neither side from trying to build up its influence in the region. In Syria, after a relentless war which has left countless innocent people dead, Iran’s influence is in the ascendency along with its old ally Russia. The fall of Ghouta confirms this point. It demonstrates the impotence of the West as a player in the Middle East. After Saddam’s fall in 2003, Iran quickly developed its importance in Iraq. Iran was also quick to protect its neighbour when ISIS took over large parts of Iraq in 2014. Interestingly, John Bolton, who has been made Trump’s national security advisor after general McMaster was cashiered, wants to destroy the Iranian regime and advocates its replacement by Maryam Rajavi’s Mojahedin-e Khalq organisation, whose members had been proscribed as terrorists in many western countries. Mohammed bin Salman, who has recently been on a charm offensive and has been rubbing shoulders with Theresa May and schmoozing with president Trump making billion dollar deals, is now on a mission to win over support in Iraq.

Trump is actually a new face, not a new factor on US outlook on Pakistan

From Dawn by Peerzada Salman. Two eminent speakers on Thursday shed light on the current state of Pak-US relations at The Pakistan Institute of International Affairs (PIIA). The first speaker was Najmuddin Sheikh, former foreign secretary of Pakistan. He started his talk by mentioning a few myths that prevailed. He said there was the myth that Pakistan and the United States had mutual interests. It had never been the case. The ties were of a transactional nature from the beginning and the commonalities were contrived. We did not have a common aversion to the Soviet Union. During the Afghan jihad we were genuinely concerned about the Soviet Union consolidating its position in Afghanistan, the old idea that it was looking for warm waters, but the Americans had a different idea; they said they would do to the Soviet Union what it did to them in Vietnam. The only commonality was the war against terror.

Mr Sheikh then pointed out the errors that the US committed. He said: “Why did the US allow Osama bin Laden get shifted from Sudan to Afghanistan?” He [Osama] travelled by a C130 from Sudan to Afghanistan. In Sudan he was a relatively unknown figure whereas in Afghanistan he was a hero of the Afghan jihad. Two years later an American general sitting in the office of our chief of army staff said they were firing missiles across our air space but they were not meant for us; they were trying to hit a camp in Afghanistan where they believed Osama bin Laden was. Mr Sheikh said the current situation was that President Trump’s New Year tweet generated a lot of speculation and he [Sheikh] thought there was a more rational explanation for it. Continue reading →

The government needs to work together with the mainstream Baloch political parties to bring reforms and change in Balochistan.

On 18 September 2017, Geneva’s streets were branded with ‘Free Baluchistan’ posters by members of the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA); a separatist group proscribed by both the United Kingdom and Pakistan as a terrorist organisation. Only recently, Pakistan strongly protested against Switzerland allowing its territory to be used by a terrorist organisation to carry out activities that infringed upon its sovereignty and territorial integrity. The ambassador of Switzerland, Thomas Kolly, was asked to leave Pakistan, by the Senate Chairman Mian Raza Rabbani. India was also deemed responsible for funding these displays in Geneva. While there has been no concrete evidence suggesting whether India has funded such activities, it has extended its support to these separatist groups on previous occasions. India’s National Security Advisors, AK Doval, threatened Pakistan, stating that the troublesome neighbour could lose Balochistan if 2008 was repeated.

Following Doval’s threats on Balochistan, Pakistan arrested India’s senior intelligence operative, Commander Kulbhushan Jhadav, from Balochistan on March 3, 2016, who confessed to funding, training and planning terrorist attacks in the province. The event in Geneva orchestrated Pakistan’s biggest fear – international meddling in its affairs with regards to Balochistan. Yet, neither Switzerland nor India are responsible for the rise of the separatists in Balochistan; rather, the fault lines can be traced to the uneven state building in Pakistan. While greater resources and efforts have been devoted to the federal, Balochistan remains neglected in political, economic, and social terms. A disenfranchised Balochistan lays as a breeding ground for insurgency. Continue reading →

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